The credibility candidate: Joyce Murray in conversation

I am beginning to think that this country should be governed by a mother — though some might argue it already is.

“The role of government is to protect the common good. Stephen Harper is not doing that. He is acting as cheerleader for a particular industry. He is letting a single industry interest hurt the common interest.”

The words belong to Liberal leadership candidate Joyce Murray. She is one of the few politicians I have recently met who understands that the house is on fire.

Even stranger, there is no communications minuet performed during our interview: Murray answers direct questions directly.

One other thing. We are sitting alone in her parliamentary office. There is no anxiety-ridden aide trying to catch the boss’s eye like a spaniel with a full bladder and the leash in its mouth. We are speaking to each other the way regular people do: attentively.

How direct is this largely unknown, politically accomplished, business-savvy mother of three? For the most part, very direct. The exception is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where she chooses her pro-Israeli words very carefully, but at least grazes the subject of Palestinian human rights. She is not the only politician who touches on this subject like a butterfly with tender feet.

On almost all other matters, though, where others dance through the usual landmine issues, Murray offers the straight goods. She is refreshing, authentic, qualified and engaging.

“I am against the Gateway Pipeline. But I am also against the Kinder Morgan pipeline. I’m the only leadership candidate who will tell you that. Why am I against them? Because the people in the affected areas are overwhelmingly against them.”

When Murray sees an elephant in the room, she doesn’t ignore it — she measures the tusks. Anyone who can operate an abacus knows that she is right about the catastrophic political arithmetic of the Left. If nothing is done about it, there will be no need to change the drapes at 24 Sussex for a very long time.

“The vote-splitting has to end. There is a much higher risk of Harper being re-elected if it doesn’t. We need to come up with a single progressive candidate in certain places. That doesn’t mean that the business of renewing and rebuilding the Liberal Party can’t or shouldn’t go on.”

Like Nathan Cullen during the NDP’s leadership race, Murray is saying that it is what it is.

A final example of Murray’s candour: the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA).

Over the last few days, the Harper government quietly fulfilled its plan to close the ELA. This was first announced as a possibility in May 2012 as an economizing measure.

This is both a big deal and a bad joke. Stephen Harper spent 15 times the piddling $2 million annual budget of the ELA dredging up the war of 1812. And it was the ELA which did the science that made the acid rain treaty between Canada and the U.S. possible. It was the ELA that figured out how phosphorous was fouling fresh water around the world.

So far, on an issue-by-issue basis, Murray is the Liberal party’s most credible and compelling alternative to a government whose clothesline is sagging under the weight of six years of dirty laundry.

All the talk about finding a new operator for this world-famous facility was just more bull from the government’s ever-churning BS machine. The distance between the Harper government’s declarations and the facts is as wide as the Grand Canyon. ELA’s death warrant was issued without a word from Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield or Kenora MP Greg Rickford. Both know their Bible well — especially the part about Pontius Pilate.

They had no comment to make when DFO quietly informed Ontario a few days ago that it is terminating the Memorandum of Understanding that has governed the 57-lake outdoor aquatic lab since 1993. The Harper government has finally got the gum of freshwater research off its shoe.

Scientists who used to work there will be producing no more red or amber lights to slow production at the tar sands over environmental issues touching on the pollution of fresh water. If there is a new operator for the ELA somewhere out there, it will now be negotiating with Ontario’s minister of Natural Resources, not Ottawa.

In other words, bring in the mothballs — the ELA has been Harpered. Meanwhile, scientists around the world are asking: when was William Jennings Bryan reincarnated as prime minister of Canada? This is our Scopes Monkey Trial and we not only got the verdict wrong, we got the appeal wrong too.

A lot of politicians have decried the closing of the ELA and the muzzling of Canadian scientists. But Joyce Murray is the only Liberal leadership candidate who has said exactly what she would do about it if she were Liberal leader and PM.

“I would re-open the ELA. It would be re-opened. I’m not here to tell you that I would reverse all of Harper’s bad decisions. I can’t put the toothpaste of Nexen back in the tube. But I would reverse that one.”

Nor was she there to say that everything Harper has done is wrong; she says she admires the government’s long-overdue reform of Canada’s immigration system. She is not a Harperphobe, but not a sleepwalker either.

With federal ministers like Vic Toews providing the laugh-track for our sitcom federal government, (did he really say the Opposition was to blame for Arthur Porter being put in charge of CSIS?) Murray is neither diverted nor amused by the government’s Newspeak. She’s believes the next time Canadians go to the polls, it will be a Rubicon election.

“I think the next election is critical. Harper is building a lock on power, changing every convention of governance in his favour. This is abuse of our political democracy, plain and simple. The scope and scale of change is unprecedented.”

There can be no argument there. The federal government’s legislative approach has been as appalling as some of the details of particular bills. Stephen Harper once opposed omnibus legislation; now he is the Donald Trump of dump, making the bills bigger and bigger.

Apart from its legislative agenda, this government’s first instinct is often downright creepy: wanting to snoop on the Internet; wanting to listen in on conversations at airports like the kids who rat out their parents in 1984; wanting to ignore the impression that the leader surrounds himself with sketchy dudes more suited to the Sopranos; and branding critics and activists as dangerous or subversive.

So far, on an issue-by-issue basis, Murray is the Liberal party’s most credible and compelling alternative to a government whose clothesline is sagging under the weight of six years of dirty laundry.

She knows the ultimate price Canada pays for not establishing a price for carbon. She knows what’s happening in Alberta is not sustainable. She knows that if the federal government is going to do deals like Nexen, Ottawa needs a reciprocal arrangement with countries like China and the means of enforcing it. It’s not happening.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.